Report on the Bacteriology of Water. 



193 



may be accepted that it occurs in water (tanks in India) as an occa- 

 sional impurity.* 



Instances of the detection of the bacillus of typhoid fever {Bacillus 

 typhosus, Eberth) in waters used for domestic purposes also seem to 

 be established ;f though it should be insisted on that great difficulties 

 still stand in the way of directly recognising this species. % 



Of forms pathogenic to the lower animals, there have been found in 

 water the bacterium which causes septicaemia in rabbits {Bacillus 

 cuniculicida, Koch), which was originally met with in the waters of 

 the River Panke, at Berlin, according to Koch.§ 



Rintaro Mori has also recorded the occurrence of three pathogenic 

 species in the water of a certain drainage-canal. || These are (1) Bacillus 

 murisepticus^ (Koch); (2) a form which Mori names " Kapseltra- 

 gender Canal-bacillus" resembling in some respects Friedlauder's 

 Bacillus pneumoniae, but not identical, with it ; and (3) a form, also 

 unidentified as yet, which the author simply records as " Canal- 

 bacillus." These forms or species were very constant in the drainage- 

 canal water, and were proved to be pathogenic by infecting mice and 

 guinea-pigs with them. 



* Koch, in 1 Berliner Klin. Wochenschr.,' 1883-84; 'Bericht iiber die Thatigkeit 

 der zur Erforschung der Cholera hn -Tahre 1883 entsandten Commission,' Berlin, 

 1887, p. 182. Nicati and Bietsch found the same spirillum during a cholera 

 epidemic in the harbour of Marseilles (' Rev. d'Hygiene,' 1885, May 20). 



f Loir, in ' Ann. d. l'lnst. Pasteur,' vol. 1, 1887, p. 488, and Cassedebat, in same 

 Annals, vol. 4, 1890, pp. 625—640. 



The typhoid bacillus (Eberth- Graff ky) was first detected in water by Moers ("Die 

 Brunnen d. Stadt Mulheim a. Rhein vom Bakteriologischen Standpunkte aus be- 

 trachtet," ' Erganzungshefte, Centralbl. f. allgem. Gesundheitspilege,' 2, 1886, 

 p. 144) ; then by Michael in Dresden (" Typhusbacillen im Trinkwasser," 'Eort- 

 schritte d. Medizin,' 4, 1886, No. 11, p. 353) ; for the third time by Dreyfus-Brisac 

 and Widal (" Epidemie de Eievre Typho'ide, Considerations Cliniques et Becherches 

 Bacteriologiqu.es," ' Gaz. Hebdom.,' 1886, No. 45) ; then, for the fourth time, by 

 Chantemesse and Widal (" Enquete sur une Epidemie de Eievre Typho'ide qui a 

 regne a, Pierrefonds, 1886," 'Rev. d'Hygiene,' 9, p. 116 ; ' Archiv. de Phys. et Pathol.,' 



1887, p. 217) ; also by Reumer (" Zur Aetiologie d. Abdominaltyphus," ' Deutsche 

 Mediz. Wochenschr.,' 1887, No. 28), as well as by others. Eor complete summary, 

 see Jaeger, "Zur Kenntniss d. Yerbreitung d. Typhus durch Contagion und 

 Kutzwasser," ' Zeitschr. f . Hygiene,' 10, 1891, p. 197. 



+ Parietti has recently published a means for distinguishing it from the false 

 forms. See 'Ann. de l'lnstit. Pasteur,' vol. 5, 1891, p. 414. 



§ ' Mittheil. aus d. Kaiserl. G-esundheitsamte,' 1881, vol. 1, p. 94. 



|| " TJeber Pathogene Bacterien im Canalwasser, " ' Zeitschr. f. Hygiene,' vol. 4, 



1888, pp. 47—54. 



% This had also previously been found in the water of the Panke (Graff ky- 

 loeffler, ' Mittheil. a. d. K. Gesundheitsamte,' 1, pp. 80 and 135). 



